Looking Glass
by solysal
Summary: Sometimes the the edge forces you to examine things you'd rather leave be. First up: Argentine. Music pulses, it breathes the heavens, it lives. And something without even the scars of life can never make music.


Disclaimer: If you'd like to hear lies, I could tell you I own DNAngel.

Spoilers for volume 10. The first of a series of drabbles centering around the individuals involved with and affected by the emergence of Argentine. First up, Argentine.

Undead

My palms glide over the gleam of the keys. Raised ebony provides an obstacle to inexperienced hands; they know not why they bar the immaculate, fair plain. But push down one of these slender plateaus and the difference is like night and day. Only to practiced ears, though. Ivory cascades down, a wooden hammer strikes a set of strings, vibrating with daunting precision – sound is made. Rough hands crafted this thing, lovingly caressing the glossed polish, before parting with the faintest traces of regret tainting an otherwise perfect exchange of business. Except that the noise that my touch creates shall never resemble music - music pulses, it breathes the heavens, weaves through walls. It drips with emotion. It lives. And something without even the scars of life can never make music.

So the molding master said.

The girl that sleeps in the adjacent room mentioned its sadness. My head swings loosely at her naivety, and I wonder absently if she knows true music. Her youth surprised me. I direct my thoughts back to the ghost being born with each full ring of this instrument. A deaf composer constructed this piece from the shambles of what remained in his mind over two hundred years past. He called it "Moonlight Sonata". Its initial simplicity betrays its subtle premonitions of something more. It possesses an unyielding patience; an almost nauseating complacence pools under the glacial façade. Yet it merely waits, despite growing apprehension from my fingers.

The molding master once remarked that my digits' slender form seemed unable to resist the tug of the wind because they lacked strength, like reeds. "But sometimes," he mumbled to himself, "it takes undeniable strength to be able to yield." The complexities of humans never ceased to amaze me. It fed on my thoughts while I leaned against the rigid confines of my prison. The architecture of the seal had been expertly formed; the blends of magic fit against one another seamlessly, just as lights meld into one another to form white. I thought I would lay there eternally, allowing dust to coat my shell in layers, never moving for fear that the atrophy of my mind would be obstructed. My astonishment was evident to the one that released me.

Ah, it appears the notes hasten their steps. In comparison to their predecessors, they feel haphazard – like an overconfident fledgling attempting flight. It lacks maturity, I think. But the abstractions of one such as myself cannot become anything substantial. I wave them away gently, not wishing them to disappear completely. True, no matter how many layers I pile atop one another, nothing significant will result. But something will come nonetheless. This is why I was sealed, the molding master said. This is why they shut me from humanity. Like the beast I am. I dared to be something more.

For this I now atone.

I shall bar the mistakes of another who strains without purpose against the feathery shackles clamped around his wrists. He wanders time seeking the love that was wisely kept from his grasp. I can only imagine the consequences should his desire be fulfilled. The chaos that would engulf the world resides beyond words. The delicate breach between "us" and the living would be crossed – it hangs by feeble threads now, damaged beyond repair. And for what selfishness? What is it that you seek, Black Wings? Your want exists in a realm of sentiment that I will not try to understand.

But why would you sacrifice one so young? The girl intrudes once more upon my thoughts. Her skin still reflects the luster of borrowed luminescence, her hazel eyes still recall the amber crystallizing the earthly forms of so many once-living. You know she loves you. You dangled her in front of my eyes like a boy with a new plaything, swinging her side to side in her blindness. Purely egotistical of you. Anger cracked jagged lines through her face when she awoke. The argument was simple. She disliked her change of clothes. The situation remedied itself easily with an explanation, the placement of a flower behind her ear, the brush of my hands against her hair, soft as silk. I hope her part in this remains small.

The piece dies down, rasping out its final breaths, though it never respired to begin with. A part of me yearns to see you succeed, Black Wings, if only to see what you have set before yourself accomplished. In truth, the disarray that would ensue after your feat does not perturb me in the least. It would swallow the world in its murky waters, and the pale flame of whatever you attained would be mercilessly extinguished. Your deeds would become legend to the rest of our brethren. You would have reached what I still fall from.

Why do I do this? My hollow laugh resounds through the room's perfect acoustics. I do this for myself and myself alone. I owe no debt to they that freed me. My only obligation was to the molding master, and that was repaid in kind. His memory embeds itself forever in my corpse, his words lace everlastingly through my own empty ones – though my body never lived, though my words never held any meaning. The catharsis that winds itself slowly around my mind does not come without price. I challenge you as I have never challenged myself.

I am not dead, however. I never "was."

Perhaps that is why you interest me. Black Wings, what shall you do? The Hikari's Argentine keeps in his cold embrace your Sacred Maiden. Shall you let me have her?

The piece completes itself; the phantom fades dutifully into the air like the puppet it can never exceed. The piano reverberates noiselessly. I close my eyes.

She is but a child. I am left with the rustle of her sighs blanketing my ears and spilling into this raging quiet.

A/N: Argentine's fun to write, as are all slightly insane characters. Your emotions, be they good or bad, are best expressed in the form of reviews (attempt at subtle coercion #1537).


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